Chapter Thirty-Nine
Maddox
Vegas sucked.
Not the crowd, they were fucking lit. It was me. I sucked. Because all I did was watch Paige, memorize the slight furrow in her brow when the drums were heavy in certain songs, the way her head bobbed, hair hanging over her face, eyes closing when she was really feeling it.
But even through all that, every time she lifted her eyes to mine, it was only ever Beau’s voice in my head.
Choose.
I left the venue feeling like someone had reached into my chest, squeezed their fist around my lungs, and forced me to breathe through it. And even walking into another hotel lobby, the sensation’s still there.
“Nightcap?” Eli thumbs toward the bar.
I shake my head. “Gonna head up.”
“Boring.” He looks at Beau. “What about you?”
Beau’s eyes dart to mine before he nods stiffly. His shoulders are tight as he walks across the tiled entryway, disappearing into the bar. He hasn’t said more than two words to me since this morning’s blow-up, and honestly, I don’t blame him.
This thing with Paige? It was never going to stay a secret. It was foolish to think it ever could.
The elevator doors slide open with a dull thud, my floor empty and quiet. I don’t move right away, standing in the lonely car, fingers curled around the gold rail behind me, the silence louder than any crowd.
Eventually, I step out, keycard in hand, every muscle wound tight, ready for a night of being stuck alone with my thoughts. I turn the corner toward my room just in time to see a door across the hall swing open.
Paige steps out, hair twisted into a knot at the top of her head, an oversized vintage Sip Station tee hanging loosely over a pair of cotton shorts.
Her eyes go wide for a second before her expression shifts, a small smile tugging at her lips like she wasn’t sure she’d see me. Or maybe hoping that she would.
The strangled squeeze in my chest returns, it’s vise-like grip painful. I know we can’t keep this up, yet part of me is already splintering at the thought of letting her go.
Now’s your chance.
“Hey,” she says, catching her door with her heel as it starts to close. “I was just coming to find you.”
She lifts my notebook in her hand, chewing on her lower lip, and I’m desperate to know what notes she’s left me. We just stand there, for a beat too long, like we’re both pretending this is casual.
I glance down at it, swallowing around the lump in my throat. “Yeah?”
She steps back into her room slowly, her eyes never leaving mine in silent invitation. I should walk away. Now is not the right time to talk about my lyrics, or go inside with her, because as soon as that door closes, I know I’m not strong enough to resist her.
But my feet move forward anyway, walking toward her as she clutches my book to her chest, something vulnerable in her eyes as she watches the door click shut behind me, her chest rising with a slow, shaky inhale as the lock engages.
“Maddox.” Her gaze drops to the floor quickly before meeting mine again. “This was…” Her thumb brushes the edge of the cover. “No notes.”
I blink, hating the way she’s looking at me, like she knows exactly what the song is about, like she knows everything because she’s lived it with me from start to finish.
And it fucking guts me, because in a different world, one where the band wasn’t on the line, where things I’m keeping from her weren’t between us, growing bigger every day, this might’ve be different. And as she stares at me, she has no clue that I need to end…this.
Not that there’s anything to end. It’s just been touches and tension and sex in shadows.
Just need.
So why doesn’t it feel like that’s all this is?
“Paige, I—”
She shakes her head, rushing forward and pressing the book to my chest, her hand firm against it.
“It was perfect,” she says, almost a whisper. “Every line, every word, every heartbreaking beat of it.”
My heart pounds harder as I hold my hand over hers, right over the pages, over the song, over everything I can’t say out loud.
Tell her.
But I can’t, not when she’s so open and unguarded, standing in front of me like she sees something in me no one else does. The words get stuck in my throat, and I let the notebook fall from between us, keeping her hand on my chest.
I move carefully, my free hand tracing her neck, her jaw, committing each curve of her to memory like I won’t get another chance.
Because I won’t, and it kills me.
I want to say all the things clawing at me, to let her know everything. But I don’t get to want her and protect her and the band. Not at the same time.
Leaning in and taking my time, I don’t kiss her like before, her lips parting beneath mine, soft and warm and real. She tastes like quiet and comfort and the kind of heartbreak that won’t leave a mark until later, when it’s too late to stop.
Paige loops her arms around my neck, gently closing the gap, her lips like silk against mine, her tongue a gentle brush as it slides into my mouth. I walk her backward slowly until the backs of her knees brush the edge of the bed, and she sinks down onto it without a word.
There’s no fighting this time. No teasing, no rushing, just the two of us and the truth we’ve been pretending not to see.
My hands find the hem of her shirt, guiding it up slowly, inch by inch, to reveal the skin I got to touch in the dark. But tonight, under the light, it feels different.
It’s like I’m saying goodbye with every drag of my fingers, like I’m trying to take something with me before I lose it, each kiss an apology I don’t know how to voice. And maybe if I worship her body like she deserves, she’ll forgive me for what I’m about to do.
Silently, I toss the shirt to the floor and kneel between her legs, pressing a kiss to the inside of each thigh, travelling up to her hips, to the dip of her belly, each one of my touches making her sink back into the mattress.
My fingers skate up her sides, needing to touch her with every part of me as my clothed body blankets hers.
She looks at me, blue eyes shining with something that cuts like a knife to my heart. Because I’m a coward. A sick, twisted man, taking what he wants one last time when she has no idea what it really means.
Her fingers smooth under my shirt, over my ribs, mapping me as she pulls me back down for a kiss that has the power to bring me to ruin.
These are the moments cruel love songs are carved from. Heartache and deceit disguised as tenderness, pain and regret for ever letting someone in.
She deserves more than this.
More than me.
And still, I kiss her again, like maybe, just maybe, if I give her all of me now, maybe she’ll never realize that while she was letting me in, I was already walking away.